Jo Jo / Too Little Too Late / X

The title track is a catchy pop ditty about teenage love. Jo Jo's image is highly sexualized. She appears in a teddy on her CD cover. There are no bad words in the lyrics, but the song does contribute to her over sexualized image. In the song she holds firm against a guy who is seeing her more as a physical object than a relationship. The problem is that Jo Jo intentionally offers nothing but her physical self. It’s a trap easily sprung on young teens. I’ve heard people say, "She gives out a message, but it’s still worth it!" It's a dangerous game to pat yourself on the back for being a role model with a wink to the wild side. For older teens who have the capacity to see through this hypocrisy, it's good pop dance music.

 

Snow Patrol / Eyes Open / ✝

Snow Patrol is a creative band from North Ireland that spins out Emo influenced pop rock. They do a pretty good job at it too. I like their harder stuff more than their slower stuff which I think gets a little whiny. That's just my opinion. No bad stuff here. They have a good image that parents won’t object to. The music drives this band.

 

The Fray / How To Save A life / ✝

The Fray is good organic mature pop rock. Pretty cool stuff. No worries with the content or the image either. I was disappointed when I read the blog on their web site. After listening to the CD and not finding any bad words, I found tons of mild obscenities on their blog entries. I hate that! Which is the real them? Their music or their blog?

 

Hinder / Extreme Behavior / XXX

Give it a rest guys. The '80's were over 15 years ago, and so was corporate, long-hair, put-your-lighter-in-the-air arena rock. At least I thought. And if I wanted some of it, I'd much rather listen to my old Bon Jovi records than your junk. Of course I liked Jon and the boys because they were a class act, unlike the trashy images put out by Hinder's mentors: Poison, Skid Row, and White Snake. Hinder's music isn’t even very creative. They just plan on making a lot of noise with a trashy image. The CD features a close up of a girl's chest. Penthouse magazine covers are more discrete. The CD comes in two versions, explicit and clean. Here’s the joke: The clean one still carries that explicit cover! The web site is a filthy pool of, well, extreme behavior. At least they live up to their name. The band's blog is sick, they promote drug use and they have a contest called cat fight" that encourages female fans to send in indecent photos of themselves, which of course the band posts, so that fans can vote on which girl they like better. It's bands like these that make it important to filter and supervise cable and Internet use.

 

Fergie / London Bridge / XX

The lead female voice from the much panned (in this column) Black Eyed Peas is serving up her solo self with this initial single. The CD isn't out as of this writing, but if you think it's going to be clean, well, I've got a bridge I want to sell you. The single is available in both clean and explicit versions. The joke is that the clean version is probably more dirty than the explicit. Yes, the "bad" words have been removed, but that only heightens the explicit innuendo. By all accounts Fergie has always been the more risque influence in the Peas. I'll pass on this one too.